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Tuesday, April 14, 2015

April 14, 1865

I
certainly hope that you all are looking forward to a historical Tuesday Timeline this week because we are really going back in time. To before the 1900s!

It's
very rare that I do a Tuesday Timeline spotlight that is set during the 1800s,
but this was one event that I knew that I just couldn't ignore. It was an event that back in its day was
quite shocking, and although similar instances have happened since, this one
truly was the talk of the town back in the day - as well as the talk of a
nation.

We'll
get to that in a little bit.

In
the meantime, we have some other things to get out of the way first. Let's see what else happened on April 14
throughout history as well as seeing who has an April 14 birthday.

1715 - In South Carolina, the Yamasee War begins

1828 - Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his
dictionary

1860 - The first Pony Express rider reaches San
Francisco, California

1881 - In El Paso, Texas, the "Four Dead In Five
Seconds Gunfight" takes place

1894 - The first commercial motion picture house opens
up in New York City

1912 - RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg shortly before
midnight - the vessel sinks a little over two and a half hours later

1925 - Actor Rod Steiger (d. 2002) is born in
Westhampton, New York

1927 - The first vehicle manufactured by Volvo is
showcased in Sweden

1939 - John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"
is first published

1944 - Three hundred people are killed in the Bombay
harbor explosion

1948 - Photographer/actress Berry Berenson (d. 2001) is
born in Murray Hill, Manhattan, New York

1956 - The videotape is demonstrated in Chicago,
Illinois

1957 - Comedian Richard Jeni (d. 2007) is born in
Brooklyn, New York

1958 - Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after
being suspended in space for 162 days

So,
as mentioned up above, today's Tuesday Timeline date predates the 1900s, so you
know we're going to be talking about a major historical event.

An
event that took place on April 14, 1865.

Wow,
that was one hundred and fifty years ago!

And
let's just say that a century and a half ago, a shocking event took place that
changed the course of American politics forever.

That
was the day that President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre by John
Wilkes Booth. Lincoln, of course, died
the following day.

Of
course, there have been quite a few assassination attempts on American
Presidents over the country's 238-year-history. Of course, most people remember the 1981 attempt on President
Ronald Reagan and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme attempting to off Gerald
Ford in 1975.

And
of course, Lincoln wasn't the only President to be assassinated. James Garfield, William McKinley, and John
F. Kennedy were all killed while in office in 1881, 1901, and 1963
respectively.

However,
Lincoln was the very first President to die at the hands of an assassin - and
believe it or not, this was not the first time that Lincoln had been the
subject of an assassination attempt!

In
1861, Lincoln's life was threatened by a group who vowed to assassinate him on
his way to his inauguration in Baltimore, Maryland. A second attempt was made three years later in August 1864 when a
lone rifle shot missed hitting Lincoln's head!
The thing that saved him? His
love for tall hats. The bullet struck
the hat.

Sadly,
the third attempt proved to be fatal.

On
April 14, 1865 - Good Friday - Lincoln and his wife attended a performance of
"Our American Cousin" which was playing at Ford's Theatre in
Washington D.C. The Lincolns attended
the play with Major Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris, and they were seated in
the Presidential Box after the play had already started. Approximately 1,700 people were in Ford's
Theatre at the time.

What
Lincoln wasn't aware of was that John Wilkes Booth - an actor who had
participated in performances held at the theatre - was already there. And he was there for one reason only.

To
kill Lincoln.

But
why was Booth so keen on assassinating Lincoln? And why was Lincoln's life threatened more than once?

Well,
it all has to do with when Lincoln was elected as President of the United
States. Or, rather, I should say
President of the Northern United States.

You
see, Lincoln was elected in 1861, which happened to be the same year that the
American Civil War began. In 1861,
there were only thirty-four states in the Union, and of those thirty-four
states, at least eleven decided to secede from the United States to become the
Confederate States of America. And as
it so happened, most of the states to join the Confederate Union were southern
states.

Hence
the reason why the American Civil War is sometimes referred to "North vs.
South".

The
reason for the Civil War was stemmed from the controversial practice of
slavery. There was once a dark time in
American history in which white Americans forced people of colour to become
their personal slaves, making them do all of the hard work that they did not
want to do, and often being abused physically and sexually if they ever stepped
out of line.

And
Abraham Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories,
which lead to hostilities between the Northern States (who opposed slavery) and
the Southern States (who supported it).

As
we all know, the Civil War ended in 1865 with the North triumphing over the
South, and the country once more became the United States of America (even
though the Confederate States of America were never recognized as an official
nation in its four year history). But
many people who lived in the Confederate States region still remained loyal to
the confederation.

John
Wilkes Booth was one. And because of a
speech Abraham Lincoln gave just three days before he died about how Lincoln
wanted to enfranchise the former slaves, Booth decided that Lincoln must die.

And on April 14, 1865, Booth opened fire on
Lincoln inside of Ford's Theatre. He
died the next day.